Summer Vacation... Part 1

In New Zealand, Christmas is summer vacation time. Car trips and camping abound. Great idea! So, on Dec. 27, we planned a five day trip for Dec. 29 to Jan 2. (*chuckle* We're starting to get the hang of the Kiwis' laid back - "she'll be right" - approach to life.)

We figured it was too late to have any hope of finding camp site or backpackers reservations in the Kiwis' favorite Christmas spot - Abel Tasman National Park, in the northwest of the South Island. Ditto for many of the other major outdoor South Island tourist destinations like Mount Cook, Queenstown, the Fiordlands, etc.

So we looked south. It didn't hurt that, by all accounts, this area is known to be "winter-y" in winter, so hitting the south in summer seemed like a good idea to us.

(For those not in New Zealand - "south" in New Zealand is almost as far south as you can go on land without being in Antarctica. The town of Invercargill is home to the world's southernmost McDonald's; the town of Dunedin had a iceberg from the antarctic ice sheet drifting offshore two years ago; and only the tip of South America reaches further south.)

A little bit of google research helped narrow it down: "Situated off the beaten track on the southern-most coast of South Island, New Zealand, The Catlins is a major highlight of the Southern Scenic Route." Sounded perfect for last minute planners like us.


An ocean front B&B in Kaka Point conveniently had a cancellation for the nights of December 31 and January 1. We just needed to find someplace else to stay for the couple of days before that. The first backpackers (kiwi term for hostel) we called was all booked up, so we kept calling around. Mike finally made reservations for the 29th and 30th at a completely random one called "Dophin Lodge." I thought the name was cute, Mike thought it was cheesey.

And off we went. (I'm having some trouble with embedding the Google map, so here's the link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Christchurch,+Canterbury,+New+Zealand&daddr=Curio+Bay,+New+Zealand&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=38.168775,-86.993993&sspn=0.008283,0.021071&ie=UTF8&z=7)

There were amazing sights on the drive down and back, and the B&B in Kaka Point was elegant. (We'll get to those photos in the next blog "Sumer Vacation... Part 2".) But nothing came close to what we had accidentally stumbled across at our backpackers.

Curio Bay is a flat, rocky ledge of a bay, connected to Porpoise Bay, a gorgeous protected bay ringed by a sand beach.


The backpackers is actually on Porpoise Bay - it's one of those little dots on the road. Here's a closer view looking down the road. The brown & white house is the backpackers; the sandy beach is just below the houses hidden by the rise.


We hadn't been there more than 15 minutes (just enough time to drop our luggage, take off our shoes, and walk on the beach), when we discovered that the Dolphin Lodge's name wasn't cute or cheesey, just understated. There in the surf, not even 30 feet away, were dolphins!

We hadn't even thought to bring our camera - we just wanted a walk on the beach before the sunset. But here is a photo we found on the web to show you just how close they came:


And they weren't just any dolphins, but Hector's Dolphins. Found only in New Zealand, Hector's Dolphins are the smallest and rarest marine dolphin in the world. The random backpackers we had chosen was on the only bay in the world where Hector dolphins come so close to the shore without people feeding them.

Not to be outdone, a seal walked up on the shore right in front of the dolphins, and rolled around in the sand and settled in for a nap at the base of a staircase off the beach. The people walking up and down didn't seem to bother it in the least. We caught a photo of the seal the next day on the Curio Bay side (the rocky ledge side). He's the third "boulder" from the left.


Once the dolphins had moved on, and the seal obviously was going to sleep for a while, we went back up to the backpackers. There we were told we had to go out again to see the penguins come in at sunset.

Turns out that Curio Bay is also a nesting ground for Yellow Eyed Penguins. You can probably guess about them - they are the rarest penguin in the world, endangered, found only in New Zealand, and some just happen to come onshore next to the backpackers we had randomly chosen. (At this point, if someone had said there was a unicorn in the field next door, we would have believed them.)


The Yellow Eyed Penguins nest in the flax bushes on the cliffs above Curio Bay at this time of year. The baby penguins wait in the bush with one parent, while the other goes out to sea to fish. At sunset, the fishing parent comes ashore to switch places.

The penguin makes its way past the bull kelp where the surf pounds the rocky ledge.


It very slowly, cautiously, and silently crosses the rocky ledge. (There is one penguin in the first photo; there are two in the second.)




Then it disappears into the flax...




... and once hidden in the flax, produces the LOUDEST calls you have ever heard from a little bird. The Maori term for Yellow Eyed Penguins is "Hoiho" - meaning "noisy shouter." Apparently, it's "hi honey, I'm home" in penguin-ese.

Makes you feel a little silly for sitting so still to watch them come onshore, but they won't feed and/or they'll abandon their young if they are scared on the land crossing to/from the nest. There are two wardens that monitor the viewing area to make sure humans don't get too close, move too much, or make any noise.

The next day, we explored the area a little more. The area where the penguins land had a sign above it saying "Fossilized Forest." (The penguins aren't even the major attraction here.) We hadn't seen any fossils the evening of the penguins, and it turns out that you really can't see a forest for the penguins!

Go back up and look at the photos of the penguins crossing the ledge. See all those little lumps of rocks? Each and every one is actually a petrified stump from a Jurassic forest. Well, more correctly, from four Jurassic forests. Stubborn forests kept growing despite repeated layers of volcanic debris.

Yup, Curio Bay is home to rare penguins, rare dolphins, a small population of seals, and the world's best preserved petrified forest. The photos don't do justice to the number of stumps and fallen trees (aka - balance beams). Even the bark, right down to its coloring, is perfectly petrified in some places.

We laughed so much! How the heck had we missed an entire forest while watching the penguins?
Just to put the icing on the cake, we spent our last afternoon in Curio Bay learning to surf. Nick was a great teacher, and Mike is a natural. (I didn't do so badly myself, but even Nick couldn't believe Mike hadn't surfed before.) We will definitely try to keep surfing here in Christchurch!

Keep your eye out for our next blog entry: "Summer Vacation... Part 2." It will have photos of the many other areas we visited on our trip south.

NOTE - my apologies for any typos etc. in this post. Our internet connection is having just a *few* issues, and I'm hoping to upload this post before it dies again!